Maryland Smith-Led Research Draws Inaugural Panmure House Prize

Newswise — Proposed research into the long-term funding of innovation has yielded the inaugural Panmure House Prize for Rachelle Sampson, associate professor of Logistics, Business and Public Policy at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The $75,000 prize is administered by the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University in partnership with U.S.-based long-term investment consultancy FCLTGlobal and funded by Baillie Gifford. Considered one of the United Kingdom’s largest academic prizes, it recognizes research identifying potential flows of capital to innovation – in hope of finding the next major technological, retail or pharmaceutical up-and-comer.

Sampson is working with a team of researchers on this project including Maryland Smith’s Brent Goldfarb, Cornell University’s Yuan Shi and Rafael Corredoira of Ohio State University. Through analyzing U.S. patents between 1980 and 2017, the researchers seek to reveal how long-term oriented firms with government R&D, stronger scientific orientation, a more centralized organization and greater investment are more likely to produce breakthrough innovations such as Dupont’s nylon or AT&T Bell Labs’ transistor.

“I’m delighted to win the inaugural Panmure House Prize. This prize will support research that will help shed light on the critical importance of long-term investment horizons for the breakthrough innovation necessary to solve some of our most pressing challenges,” says Sampson. “It’s truly an honor to be connected with Panmure House, home of Adam Smith and a gathering place of many luminaries of the Scottish Enlightenment. I’m grateful to the esteemed panel of judges and Panmure House for the opportunity to accelerate this research and bring it into the public eye.”

Prize finalists are reviewed by a panel of international business leaders and economists, which includes James Anderson, partner at Baillie Gifford, and includes Sir John Kay, former dean of Oxford’s Said Business School; Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School; and Dominic Barton, global managing partner emeritus at McKinsey & Co and Canadian ambassador to China.

“Prizes have long proven to be wonderful catalysts for change but the link between Panmure House and the extraordinary heritage and global reputation of Adam Smith gives us an almost unparalleled opportunity,” says Anderson (via a Panmure House press release), Panmure Prize Panel Chair, partner at Baillie Gifford and co-manager of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust. “The chance to hear from remarkable individuals, spanning the best of investment practice and profound intellectual insights and to hear them discuss the issues and papers together is a huge privilege.”

The prize is named after the eighteenth-century Scottish economist Adam Smith’s final Edinburgh home. It will award $375,000 over five years for research projects into the long-term funding of innovation in the spirit of the late economist.